"Throughout Chinese history, there have always been people who preferred to
spend their lives in the mountains, getting by on less, sleeping under
thatch, wearing old cloths, working the higher slopes, not talking much,
writing even less -- maybe a few poems, a recipe or two. Out of touch with
the times but not with the seasons, they cultivated roots of the spirit,
trading flatland dust for mountain mist. Distant and insignificant, they
were the most respected men and women in the world's oldest society."

So begins Bill Porter's fascinating travelogue of his 1989 search for
hermits in contemporary China: Taoist and Buddhist, invariably, the latter
Pure Land, Chan, or Tantric. What makes his exploration so enjoyable is that
we have such a capable and amiable guide. Porter had long been a student of
Chinese thought, a voracious reader and fine translator, and here he shows
his great empathy for his favorite land and personalities.

Porter offers
quick, relevant, and interesting historical and biographical anecdotes to
give his readers context in every chapter and locale he visits. His see-saw
progress through China coaxing reluctant officials and state-sponsored monks
and abbots gives the narrative a wonderful authenticity.

Porter plunges
further and wider in his search through the Chungnan Mountains, the
historical refuge of ancient hermits, and we follow him up steep and
dangerous cliffs, past isolated farms and villages, and into neglected
temples and shrines refurbished only lately for tourists and manned by
tight-lipped monks who occasionally direct Porter to the right places with a
wink and a silent nod.

Most of the interviewees are real hermits, some are monks familiar with
hermits and their stories. And the hermits themselves are not disappointing:
reserved, philosophical, plain. We might as well be plunged 2,000 years back
to ancient China, where the accoutrements of eremitic life are nearly
identical.

Porter describes a farmer grinding green rind off of walnuts, the steep and
slippery green rocky ascents to hermit hideaways, misadventures with
suspicious police. We share a meal of corn gruel and potatoes here or a bowl
of noodles and a pot of tea there. One old hermit tells Porter about his few
planted vegetables, of gathering wild plants, of coming down once every
couple of years. Why do you live there? asks the author. "For the quiet,"
comes the answer. "Zen monks like quiet."

A Taoist hermit had the single character for "sword" on his wall. Another
tells him, "Buddhists and Taoists walk the same path. They just dream
different dreams."

The book is enhanced by a couple of useful maps. A special treat are the many black and white
photographs by the author and by photographer and traveling companion Steven R.
Johnson. The wonderfully candid photos of hermits and their stark
landscape are as valuable as the text. With an empathetic guide on a unique journey, this book is a
solid popular introduction to Chinese hermits and, indeed, to what it means
to be a hermit.